Waste Land
by Reno Spiegel
Summary: The phantom viper and Mister Saxophone...they always come back...


Author's Note: This could be called my goodbye to my secondary fandom, which I've had so much fun with it makes me extremely sad to leave. But, yes, this will be the second-to-last thing, for those following my writing, you'll see here on FanFiction.Net. Not one for big good-byes, so. . .meh. Go read "Give a Boy a Gun" in the Final Fantasy VII section, which will be posted on the twenty-ninth.  
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Waste Land  
by Reno Spiegel  
Dante@towernetwork.net  
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The Blue Crow.  
  
It was eerily subtle, how he'd chosen here of all places to go.  
  
On the corner stool of the bar, where the other two had taken their seats before him, sat the Phantom Viper, a snake amongst dragons. The way he swirled his drink was as lazy as the way his wrist hung while holding it. A jazz player did his thing on the stage behind him, playing a song that should have died years before.  
  
"Julia. . ."  
  
The snake was blind now, due to the injury that should have also killed him off, and so all he had to live on were the sounds of the solar system and the vibrations they made. This had also led to a loss of secrecy, and one he wasn't particularly disturbed by. With the syndicate's falling, their shady deals had become public gossip within a week.  
  
It made even the least-devout Red Dragon sigh in pity.  
  
The saxophone wailed behind him, and there was a loud whistle followed by a few people clapping softly, despite the song not even being over with yet. On Callisto, he supposed, you didn't have much besides your jazz music, "stale bread, a broken-down car, and rancid booze," as said the son of their aging, corrupt mayor who did little but offer a state of the union address from time to time.  
  
The piece ended and the performer gave his adieus for the night. He made no mention of the grey-haired man on the corner stool, sipping his scotch while his bird picked through his hair. "Hope you don't have ticks, stranger," the bartender had wheezily laughed at him, earning what Vicious could only hope still looked like a menacing expression from behind his sunglasses.  
  
After another drink from his glass, a cold hand fell on the viper's shoulder, and a soft, soothing voice told him he'd had his fill and it was time to go. Vicious nodded silently, paid the bartender far too much, and stood. He took his cane with him, his last resort to being able to see his way around, and was led outside by a hand on the small of his back. He didn't need ears to know his companion was leaning against the wall once out the door -- he'd spent years on Titan with him. He knew his habits.  
  
"It's funny," said a new voice, but one he'd known forever, "that even though you're blind as a bat, you can still find your way around Callisto, of all places. More surprising, perhaps, that you came here. Tell me, can you still remember my full name?"  
  
Vicious gave him the look he'd given the bartender, though he didn't know he was glaring at the wall. "Grencia Mars Elijah Guo Eckener," he recited from memory, a name he would never forget. He was debating swinging his cane out to hit the other man, but it would be a futile movement. "And you seem to think I came here searching for you. Last I heard, you were dead floating toward the old abandoned Titan, and I personally believe there's no sense in looking for a dead man. It's hard to tell who agrees with me these days, though."  
  
Gren's laugh made him all the more able to be hated. It was so cheery, it just made anyone trying to talk down to him warm up inside, if just for a moment, and forget their purpose there. "Well, can we both settle on the fact you've become horribly bitter, at least?"  
  
"Why are you here?" It wasn't so much bitter as it was snappy and demanding, the tone of a man who's been kept in the wings and been told "just a few more minutes" his entire life; the tone of a man who's been cheated out of everything he knew.  
  
His blue-haired "friend" -- if, in fact, his hair was still blue and he could even be considered a friend these days -- paused for a moment and there was the click of a butane lighter, followed by a short sizzling sound and a hoarse exhale. Last Vicious had seen him, Gren was wholly against smoking, despite being into other things.  
  
Then again, last Vicious had seen Gren, he'd been close to death.  
  
"To tell you the truth," he began in his thick, smooth voice; the one that convinced women and men alike that gender meant nothing when it came to just one night with Mister Saxophone. "I'm not quite sure why I'm here, per se. I know I'm alive because some delinquints made old, abandoned Titan into their home and nursed me back from a comatose state. You haven't changed, Vicious; you never did make sure they were dead before you ran away."  
  
Despite being blind, Vicious' mind's eye took over and a slideshow of Titan photographs slid through; bodies of men, women, children, animals, anything that wasn't dressed in an army robe. After those came the diseased soldiers, with gangreen and the like, just pleading the nurses go away and leave them to rot to death, because "that creepy Vicious guy" would probably kill them for showing weakness. Then came the cold nights in the bunker, thuds of artillery in the distance making the ground vibrate for slight spurts; the nights of wondering if he should just turn and leave them to fight without the fear of him. Then came the cold nights filled so secretly with warmth.  
  
He slammed the door at the whisper of a cruel petname -- "Reaper" -- and a sweep of indigo locks. He couldn't stop the memories of someone tucking his hair behind his ears and telling him that he wasn't dead yet, and despite the trauma, he would be a war hero for the rest of his life.  
  
Gren laughed again, and Vicious knew he must have shuddered. "Ah, so you can see a few things still. Your turn, then. Why are you here? They told me you died when Spike raided the syndicate. Why does the Reaper still walk?"  
  
Despite being weak, Vicious still punched the outside wall of the "most happenin' blues joint on Callisto, baby" hard enough to knock some loose chunks of cinder block off. "Your precious Reaper died with a certain blonde who took your place, filled it, and still had much more to give, Grencia. I'm alive because the syndicate felt I should be around if that damned Spike wasn't going to be in charge, so they treated my wounds immediately and I, also, came back to life. Some good that did; the White Tigers took charge immediately and the Dragons didn't stand a chance, especially with a blind Van leader."  
  
Vicious could almost hear the other man smile when he said, "And you say you're not bitter." The hair on his neck rose when four fingers trailed over the back of the hand atop his cane, resting feebly on his wrist as the other hand went about stroking the faithful bird on his shoulder. "So, what, you plan on wandering around until someone looking for revenge on the syndicate kills you?" There was an abrupt click. "Or do you have other plans here? Maybe you thought you'd come talk to the stage and apologize for something you did."  
  
There was no question what he meant; he was speaking of Vicious' betrayal, turning him in as a spy when he was nothing of the sort. "We were comrades and nothing else. I have nothing to apologize for."  
  
Gren's shoe hit pavement as he began circling around the grey-haired blind man, speaking in low, nostalgic tones. "There was once a Spanish war general and political leader on Earth named Ramón Maria Narváez. When he was on his death bed, a priest came in and asked if he had any enemies he would like to apologize to in the eyes of God before he passed on. Ramón had told him, "I do not have to forgive my enemies. I have had them all shot." He was behind Vicious now, arm glancing off of his back in places, fingers still casually atop his hand.  
  
"What's the point, Gren?" Vicious spat, but he was fighting an uphill battle. In all of his years, not even Julia had been as seductive as Gren, and half the time the latter didn't even mean to do it, while the former was continually trying to get at Vicious.  
  
"The point," Gren said slyly, "is that the only people we don't have to apologize to for something are the ones we brought death to, especially two men from the Titan war such as us. A comrade is someone you deal with, and would rob blindly if given the chance. I wasn't just your comrade, Vicious; we were definitely something else. So tell me, here and now, no money or pistol under the table, why exactly did you have me locked up?"  
  
Gren wasn't moving, but Vicious knew he was right over his shoulder. He knew from experience, from the memories he'd just seen. "We were more than comrades, Gren. I had to get you away from me or I would end up in a bad situation."  
  
"Liar." Gren was closer than he'd thought, as his warm breath spiralled into the bowl of Vicious' ear, and even that word sent him into a cold sweat that couldn't be nullified even by the warmest of things. "Tell me the truth, Vicious. No pistol under the table waiting to blow your balls off if you say the wrong thing in this game; I told you that."  
  
He didn't speak; he was afraid of the truth, really. Unfortunately, Gren was all too helpful this time around.  
  
"Let me guess." His breath moved down Vicious' neck. "You had me taken away because you were attached; something more than a comrade indeed. You didn't want to have to be the one to tell me you had someone back home, someone who would more than easily fill the void I left. You were afraid of hurting me, weren't you? Poor Reaper, stricken with the thought of being human and emotionally destructive."  
  
Anyone else would have lost their hand at that very second, as Vicious' cane wasn't as harmless as it seemed. "Something like that," he replied quietly, knowing he'd just lost. "I knew I couldn't live with myself until I came back and apologized, first for that and then for what I thought was killing you. Here I'd intended to just speak to the stage." He laughed coldly, a polar opposite of Gren's.  
  
Something dragged across the back of Vicious' neck, something he was sure would do him no harm. "Tell me, then," Gren whispered. "Tell me how sorry you are."  
  
Vicious had lost all sanity; he was too far gone reminiscing to understand that this was nothing like him. The unsaid offer of being more than just a comrade was too much for him to stand. "I turned you in for something you weren't. . .I left you with no explanation of where I was going. I ruined everything you may have had going for you, and for this I apologize. Do you forgive me?"  
  
He never knew if he was forgiven, because the butterfly knife that had clicked open minutes ago and was snaking its way around his neck kissed his jugular violently, piercing skin that had once been tasted by a pair of lips whose most intimate contact now came with a saxophone. Gren let Vicious' body drop in the cold evening air, as if Callisto wasn't cold enough already, and bent down to catch his last breath. Gren put the knife away and slid Vicious' eyelids down, smiling as coldly as he ever would.  
  
"I wasn't your comrade, Vicious. . .but you were mine. And I needn't forgive you, because you were weak."  
  
He rose to his feet, taking Vicious' bird with him, took up his saxophone case, and started walking toward his apartment without a second thought. His smile softened a ways down the alley, and he glanced over his shoulder.  
  
'Adieu, old friend. Adieu.'  
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-Fin  
03.21.04  
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Author's Note: Today marks the one-year anniversary with my girlfriend Kathy, so that's why I'm putting it up now. I owe her a New Year's story anyway, so this one's for her. I'll be posting my final fanfiction piece -- at least for awhile -- on the twenty-ninth in the Final Fantasy VII section, so check that out if you swing that way. As for the Bebop fandom. . .  
  
Sayonara,  
Reno 


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